Purely For Pleasure

A new series from the keyboard of Dave Cooper, and all-round angler resident in Cardiff, who fishes for most species but with a particular penchant for pleasure fishing.

The emphasis on this new series is how to enjoy your fishing no matter what you’re fishing for.

Sticking with a Long Rod

Paul Hiom, a fellow contributor to this site with his “World According to Wurzel”, was good enough to introduce me to a stretch of the Bristol Avon in Wiltshire a couple of years ago. And it’s an introduction for which I shall be forever grateful.

This river is my kind of heaven. It contains some very big barbel for which it is probably most renowned and is how I got into fishing it in the first place. I was seeking out quality barbel venues and Paul put me on to some known fish holding areas.

But I soon discovered that it also has masses to offer the pleasure fisherman. Along particular stretches you can catch chub to 5lb, bream to close on double figures, tench well over double figures, some very big pike, and perch that push the 3lb mark. Add to this quality roach and dace along with the varying character of the river and you have almost the perfect environment for the ‘all rounder’.

Now, I love to float fish, especially trotting a stick float. So in between barbel sessions I would explore the river with my float rod, fishing the stick and seeing what I could grace my landing net with.

And it was while doing this that I came across a specific problem on the Avon that was a bit frustrating. The river has a prolific weed growth on one of my preferred sections, particularly reeds that line a lot of the banks and cabbages and lilies that fill the margins for 10 or more feet out from the bank.

On a standard 13ft long float rod hooking and landing roach, dace and smaller perch was not much of a problem. However, when a decent sized perch or chub was hooked I would often run into trouble as it was virtually impossible to stop it from diving into the marginal cover leading to many a snagged and subsequently lost fish. A solution to this very annoying problem had to be found.

Then one day I happened to read an article by Dave Harrell in one the monthly angling magazines where he was using his self-designed MAP Concept 18/20ft float rod. That, I thought, had to be a possible cure of my troubles and I made up my mind to invest in one and went off researching the possibilities. All the available models appeared to be in the £ 120 to £ 140 bracket.

Now, coincidentally, around this time I happened to break my barbel rod and I thought I was going to face a hefty repair bill. I put a mail out on to the FISHINGmagic Mailing List bemoaning my luck and mentioning that the long float rod would have to go on hold for a while. Then, as often happens in fishing, lady luck reversed her hand. My local tackle dealer negotiated a free replacement top section for my barbel rod (well done Garry Evans Tackle, Cardiff and Shimano) and another List member sent me a mail saying he happened to have a 20ft rod for sale, a nearly new 18/20ft combination. Needless to say I bit his hand off and the deal was made.

Shortly afterwards I found myself on the banks of the Bristol Avon. I had baited up a barbel swim ready for an evening session and had left it to ‘stew’ so I decided to give the new float rod a try for a couple of hours.

Choosing a nice glide with an even paced four to 5ft depth I set the rod up at its 18ft length with a stick float and started feeding a few casters.

Well, what a joy to use. I was enjoying myself so much I nearly forgot to go barbel fishing. It was only the fading light that reminded me that the barbel hour was nigh and stopped the float session.

At first the extra length felt rather awkward, but after an hour or so it became as familiar as the 13ft, although the extra weight is a bit tiring on the forearm. But the additional control the longer length gave me over the stick float was amazing. It’s almost like pole fishing with a running line. You can get the line well behind the stick and hold it back effectively at distances where you would normally be in danger of pulling the float off course and causing the bait to behave unnaturally. Almost from the off roach up to the one pound mark with the occasional small chub, perch and dace were snaffling the maggot or caster hook bait on virtually every run through.

The swim was not particularly ‘snaggy’, quite open in fact, purposely chosen so I could get used to the rod. Next time out with it however I put it to the test on a weedy swim where I knew I would have problems with the shorter 13ft rod if a bigger fish was hooked.

This time I fished it at the full 20ft length. The extra 2ft made it feel even more heavy and cumbersome, but the full length was holding the float well under control as the tackle could be lowered, rather than cast, beyond the weed fringe.

After running the float through a few times and getting some loose feed falling through the swim that brought a roach of about 5 ounces to hand, the float buried and a decent fish put a healthy bend in the rod. It was a perch, and a big one.

Now normally it would have been a struggle, if not an impossibility, to keep the fish from getting in to the weed if it wanted to as a 13ft length rod would have been actually pulling the fish into the snag. The 20ft rod however enabled me to get pressure beyond the fish and pull it back towards open water until it was tired enough to be splashing on the surface and ready to be carefully drawn over the weed and into the landing net.

The next thing I discovered was that netting a big fish is not particularly easy when using a 20ft long rod. I found myself having to abort the first attempt to let some line out. You tend to underestimate the amount of line you need out in order to get the rod behind you and be able to draw the fish to the net. It would be a definite advantage to invest in a long handled landing net to match the rod. Second attempt though had the perch on the bank and it pulled the scales to 2lb 10oz, a new personal best.

It was a fish I would have in all honesty probably lost had I been using my 13ft rod. I was well pleased with both the fish and the rod and I went on to land another 2lb plus perch and three others nearly making the mark, as well as a lot of roach and dace.

The 18/20ft rod definitely has a place booked in my holdall when I am considering stick float fishing despite it being a bit heavy and cumbersome. I can honestly say, in my short experience of using it, the disadvantages of weight and balance are offset by the extra control you have over both a stick float and a hooked fish. I wouldn’t want to fish for five or six hours continually with it, but I daresay the rod designers will overcome the weight and balance problems in future models.

Now I’m looking forward to a catching big autumn and winter chub on the long rod. I shall have to give it a go with the waggler as well at some point, though I anticipate having casting problems when fishing at distance. When I have tried it out I will let you know in a future edition of ‘Purely for Pleasure’ how I fair.